As big as 2025 was for YUNGBLUD, he's somehow already looking at a larger 2026. Fresh off the release of a collaboration EP with Rock icons Aerosmith, the "Zombie" singer has 3 GRAMMY nominations and a massive 2026 tour to look forward to as the calendar turns, but first, he joins us at the Hard Rock Hotel New York to talk about it all during an Audacy Check In.
LISTEN NOW: Audacy Check In with YUNGBLUD
"I'm really lucky to kind of have a couple of weeks to like try and comprehend it all," he shares with Brad Steiner on his massive year. "I think the biggest thing I'm feeling is gratitude. I think I'm really trying to make sure that I like feel everything because, I think if you don't stop and think about what goes on and you don't process it, you just end up becoming a dick."
"This year has just been so insane, so I think the biggest feeling I'm feeling is is utter gratitude and I really feel lucky, you know what I mean?"
YUNGBLUD admits he took some risks on his latest album, Idols, and his authenticity paid off. "I think my 3rd album came out and I was listening to too many people. I think when you listen to too many people, you kind of create a character or you play a caricature of yourself," YUNGBLUD reveals. "I think with this album I really went home to the north of England and was like, 'I wanna make something that is completely limitless in terms of its imagination,' and leans on the side of like Rock opera, double album."
Praising previous albums for inspiration like The Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness or Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion, YUNGBLUD wanted an album "that would kind of take you on an adventure, and in 2025 everyone thought I was a bit f***ing mad."
"I always wanna do it when it's truthful, if it's not truthful it's just soul destroying man, you know what I mean? I think that's what's been so beautiful about me and my community, we've always had, whether it be like starting a festival or gigs or how YUNGBLUD got built in the first place, it was always through an element of truth and always through an element of like, honest communication and when it wasn't becoming honest I was like, 'this is not what I did this for.'"
Now a more pure version of himself, YUNGBLUD looks ahead to 2026 for sold out shows and finishing the project that brought him here. "I really wanna release the second part of 'Idols,'" he shares and reveals it's been ready to go "forever."
"I really wanna finish the world, it's such a world that that if I don't put that out next, even though as an artist I'm writing a new album and I've almost like departed that in my soul because I wrote it, printed it to wax, and put it out - I've got to finish 'Idols 2,' and put that to the world because the world needs to feel that environment fully fleshed out."
To hear more from YUNGBLUD on working with Aerosmith and his plans for 2026, check out the full interview above.